Cargo for the Styx Read online

  I thought about Blimey some more. He was a friend of Bonnie Minos. I thought about her for a while. She knew I’d been hunting for Irma. She and Jaspar Clift knew. But she was Blimey’s friend.

  I stood up. I said, “This time, lady, you’re going to make some sense when you talk.”

  I hopped a cab and told the driver to go north by way of Alpine and Spruce Streets. That way we passed Irma’s office. I had him slow down. I tried to see in the window against the reflection of the sunlight.

  I couldn’t see Irma, but I had a good look at something else. At Clarence Curdy across the street, behind the wheel of his sedan.

  I said to the driver, “Keep it moving. Go up a block and around so we can come back on the other side of the street.”

  He said, “Sure, Cap.”

  When we were around the corner and drifting toward Clarence’s sedan, I told the driver what to do. He nodded and held out a hand. I put a bill in it. The hand disappeared. We rolled on.

  The cab braked to a stop with my door next to Clarence. I hoped out. I climbed in the back seat of Clarence’s sedan. The cab moved away. I said, “Let’s you and me talk.”

  Clarence didn’t think that was funny. He sat with his eyes straight ahead, his hands tight on the wheel.

  He said, “Get out of here.”

  I said, “When I go, it’ll be to call Homicide. They’re interested in people who were in Blimey’s today.”

  The back of his neck turned so pale it looked almost clean. He said, “What’s that supposed to mean to me?”

  I said, “Didn’t you hear? Blimey’s was blown to hell a little while ago.”

  He said, “I didn’t have anything to do with that. I wasn’t near the place.”

  I said, “Maybe the police will want to know what you were near, Clarence.”

  He took a deep breath. “What do you want?”

  “A ride,” I said. “To my boat, Jeeves.”

  He sat still for another minute. Then he started driving. He didn’t ask me where I lived; he drove straight there.

  We strolled like a couple of tired businessmen heading for an after-work drink. If anyone saw us, they couldn’t have noticed how itchy Clarence was. He held in until we climbed aboard and down into the lounge. Then he turned on me.

  “You can’t get away with this, Zane. You got nothing on me.”

  I said, “There’s the phone. Help yourself. Call the police.”

  He stood and glared. His breath made a lot of noise as he worked it through his beak of a nose. He said, “What do you want?”

  I said, “A lot of answers. Straight ones.”

  He sat down. He ran his tongue over his lips. “I need a drink.”

  “Later. If you talk enough, you’ll work up a thirst. Then you can have some beer.”

  His expression said that beer would be fine. It also said that he wasn’t about to tell me anything, beer or no beer. I pulled the phone over to my chair. I said, “It’s getting late, and I’m due for some supper. If I don’t hear everything I want to hear in ten minutes, I call Homicide.”

  “You can’t make that threat stick, Zane.” He didn’t sound sure of himself.

  I said, “Do you know Lieutenant Nicolo, Clarence? A great guy; a great cop. Dedicated, if you know what I mean. But a little nuts. He’s got a phobia. He can’t stand an unsolved case. Right now he’s got one at Blimey’s Shack.”

  Clarence lifted his lip. He was trying a sneer but it didn’t come off. I said, “In Nicolo’s book, I’m clean. But he doesn’t like most private detectives.”

  Clarence said, “Crap,” in a way that told me he’d met policemen like Nicolo before.

  I said, “As I see it, you don’t want to meet Nicolo but you’ll take the chance. So you’ve got something big cooking. Something worth taking a pushing around for.”

  Clarence borrowed a cigarette from one of the packs I keep scattered around. He used my matches, too. He blew smoke at me.

  I got up. I brought the fish-gutting knife out of the cutlery drawer. I sat back down. I said, “I haven’t got any time to waste.”

  He looked at the knife. “What’s the idea of that?”

  I told him. He sneered at me. I said, “I’ve been pushed around, tied up, beaten. A friend of mine has been chased and maybe caught. I damn near got blown off the map today.”

  “I bleed for you,” he said.

  I said, “In about two minutes you’ll be doing just that.”

  “You haven’t got it in you,” Clarence said.

  I didn’t know whether I had or not. I got up from the chair. I walked over to him. I said, “Let’s find out if I have.”

  I shoved the knife at his leg. He pushed back in the chair. I turned the knife and caught the hook in his trousers. I ripped upward. The cloth tore open.

  I said, “I think I can, Clarence.”

  His skin was a dirty white. He tried to puff on his cigarette but he slobbered on it so that it wouldn’t draw. He began to swear at me. He wasn’t very original. He repeated himself a lot.

  He ran down. I said, “Now let’s talk about you.” He just looked at me, making a retching sound in his throat. I said, “I know I can, Clarence.”

  He still wasn’t eager to talk, but words began to come out of him. The words painted a picture. Of Clarence.

  He was a specialist. He hung around gambling dens and fancy houses. He was a patient man. Sometimes he took a month or more to find the right prospect—a man or woman gambling on the q.t. or whoring one way or another. Not big people, Clarence didn’t play them. But the medium-sized ones with a little money, a little position, a little prestige to maintain.

  Once he found his mark, Clarence gathered his evidence. Then he moved in. There would be a chance meeting, a chance remark. Do that a half dozen times to the same person over a period of a week or two and then they’re ripe for plucking by Clarence’s kind. And Clarence plucked. But he was smart. He took just what the traffic would bear and he took it only once.

  I got tired of listening to him. I said, “So now you’re in LaPlaya. Who are you going to pluck down here?”

  “I just came down to see what there was down here,” he said.

  I didn’t buy that. I said, “You wouldn’t be going after Aggie Minos or his wife, would you?”

  “They don’t mean nothing to me.”

  I said, “Then it’s someone else tied up to me. Or you wouldn’t have been on my tail. Jaspar Clift, maybe?”

  He shrugged. I said, “Or Vann.” His expression gave him away. I said, “Tell me about Vann.”

  He said, “Vann’s a gambler. He runs a string of small operations in the L.A. harbor area.”

  “And Otho?”

  “He bounces for Vann.”

  I said, “You didn’t come down here to push Vann around. You haven’t got the guts for that.” I looked down at the knife in my hand. I dropped it to the floor.

  I said, “But Vann might like to know you’re here. He might want to know why. He might even get the idea you’re trying to pluck him.”

  My knife had frightened Clarence. Threatening him with Vann terrified him. “We’ll make a deal,” he screamed at me. “I’ll tell you what I know. You let me go. A deal, Zane.”

  I said, “If I like what I hear, a deal.”

  He swallowed. He said, “It’s the dame, Irma Wilson.”

  I said, “Tell me about Irma.”

  He said, “Vann uses people like her. Respectable people with a job to protect or a family that doesn’t know they’re horsing around, gambling. He lets some of them get into him for a big I.O.U., for more than they can pay. Then he lets them buy themselves off the hook by shilling for him.”

  I said, “I’ve seen that kind of operation. Just tell me about Irma.”

  “He got her on the hook,” Clarence said. “To get herself off, she had to work on Clift. You know how Clift started living it up when his old man died. He lived up two boats’ worth and then wanted to quit. Vann thought he had a good
thing, so he put Irma Wilson to work on Clift. She did too good a job. Before Vann knew it, Clift was into him for eighty grand.”

  I said, “He could have borrowed that much on the Temoc and paid off.”

  “He did borrow, and he blew that. Vann rigged him.”

  I said, “I’m beginning to smell it. Clift is into Vann. He has no assets, no way of getting quick money. So Vann sets up some kind of deal to collect insurance on the Temoc. Clift comes down here. Vann follows to protect his investment.”

  “That’s how I see it,” Clarence said. “And everything was going fine until last night. Then you start getting nosy.”

  I said, “What kind of a deal has Vann got cooking?”

  “I’d like to know,” Clarence said seriously. “I hear there’s a lot of dough riding on that boat.”

  “Enough,” I said. “What’s with you and Irma Wilson?”

  He said, “If that company she works for knew she had played Vann’s tables, she wouldn’t last five seconds. And she’s moving up in the business. She’s got a reputation to protect.”

  “So you thought you’d put the bite on her? For how much?”

  Clarence said, “Not for dough. For information. If I can get enough on Vann, then I can handle him. But I got to have enough to make him pay big. Then I’ll blow the country.”

  I said, “How far did you get?”

  Clarence said, “Not far enough. You horned in.”

  “What were you doing at Blimey’s? What’s he got to do with it?”

  He said, “I was tagging Vann. I saw them run that big blond out. I figured I’d get that Blimey to tell me what was going on. I didn’t get a chance. I had him about half softened up and you blow in.”

  “Tough,” I said. “All right, where is Irma? Did Vann take her?”

  “Take her? Why in hell should he?” Clarence demanded. “She’s working for him.”

  Working for him, I thought. That’s why she came to see me, to find out for Vann what I knew and what information I’d passed on. And here I was sweating about her.

  I said, “Go get yourself a beer and then get the hell out of here. And out of town.”

  Clarence got up. He made it to the refrigerator. “Here?”

  “In the back. Behind the milk.”

  Clarence gave the handle of the refrigerator a yank. He never did get his beer. The noise of the refrigerator door blasting out filled the boat. The sound of it hitting Clarence drowned out everything but his brief scream.

  The scream stopped. There was no Clarence left to make a noise.

  CHAPTER XIV

  I WAS ON MY FACE. I rolled onto my back and stared stupidly toward the galley. I could see very well. A hole the shape of a refrigerator door let light down through the roof of the cabin. Another hole let in more light through what had once been the starboard side of the galley.

  I could smell the hiss of butane escaping from broken pipes. I got a whiff of ammonia. That was all I had left of my refrigerator—the stink of ammonia.

  I scrambled aft and jumped to the dock. I was looking for Clarence. I didn’t really expect to find him. I didn’t want to find him. But I had to look.

  There wasn’t much to see. The forepart of my main cabin was gone. A little debris littered the dock. A head of lettuce floated on the water. A few dying ripples against the dock pilings hinted that something heavy had dropped into the harbor and tossed up a few waves.

  I walked up to the debris on the dock. I bent and touched a piece of painted wood. I recognized it as having come from the cabin roof. There was a single spot of blood over the paint.

  I heard the siren in the distance. The fire department again, and in time Lieutenant Nicolo. I had the feeling that two explosions in one afternoon were going to be too much for Nicolo.

  I ran up the dock to Clarence’s car. I didn’t think he’d mind if I borrowed it. I needed two minutes to jump the ignition. I backed the car around and gunned onto Harbor Way. I could see the red fire truck coming fast from the south. I aimed north, up to The Point.

  I put Clarence’s sedan in Aggie’s garage. The Ferrari was still there; the Cadillac hadn’t yet returned. I didn’t bother with the front door this time. I was through being polite.

  I found a path that led between the garage and the house. It took me to a side door that opened into the kitchen. I stepped from the kitchen to a flagstoned terrace. From there I could see the swimming pool. I could also see Bonnie Minos.

  She was poised on the diving board. She made a clean dive.

  I watched her swim toward me. She had a good stroke. She reached the edge and held to it with one hand while she wiped water from her eyes with the other. Her body shimmered just below the surface of the pool. She couldn’t have been more naked.

  She saw me. She said, “The sleuth again. Have a swim with me, Zane.”

  I said, “I’m looking for Aggie.”

  “How disappointing.” She cocked her head and tried a little smile. “You’re scowling again, Zane.”

  “I’m not in the mood for games,” I said. “I just came from watching my refrigerator blow itself through my cabin.”

  “With all that good beer in it?”

  I said, “And with a man going after that beer. He wasn’t much of a man, but he was alive. And he wanted to go to hell in his own way. He didn’t ask to be blown there.”

  She stared up at me with her gray-blue eyes wide and steady.

  She began to climb out. “Toss me that towel, please, Zane.”

  I found the towel. It was as big as she. I handed it to her as she stepped off the last rung of the ladder. She wrapped herself in it and started for the French doors.

  “Come on in, Zane.”

  I went in. She padded across the living room, leaving wet footprints on the rug. She said, “Mix us a drink, will you? Swimming always makes me thirsty.”

  She went out a side door. I found the bar and mixed a pair of drinks. I followed the footprints through the side door and down a short hallway. I stopped in the entrance to Bonnie’s bedroom. She was standing before a mirror, pulling off her bathing cap. The towel was crumpled around her feet.

  Without turning, she said, “Have a good look, Zane. I like it.”

  I moved into the room, past a canopied bed, into an odor of powder and perfumes and Bonnie Minos. I said, “I like it too. Does Aggie?”

  She fluffed the sides of her hair. “He knows I’m an exhibitionist. I get some of my kicks that way. He doesn’t mind—as long as I get the rest of my kicks from him.”

  I said, “And do you?”

  She turned and took one of the glasses out of my hand. “There’s never been anybody else.” She sipped her drink. “You don’t have to believe that, but it’s true.”

  I found a chair big enough for my weight. I sat down. I said, “I’ll believe it. Now let’s skip your sex life.”

  She set the glass she was carrying down on the dresser. She opened a closet door and pulled out a dress. She pulled it on and smoothed it down over her hips. She didn’t bother with anything else, just the dress.

  She said, “All right, so you watched a man being blown up. Why come crying to me about it?”

  I said, “You’re trying to be hard. You aren’t. You’re scared simple.”

  She pushed her feet into a pair of white sandals. “All right, I’m scared. Now what do we play?”

  I poured my drink down myself. I put the empty glass on the floor. “We talk,” I said. “We talk about you and Aggie and a couple of goons named Vann and Otho. We talk about Jaspar Clift and the Temoc. And we talk about a poor, scared guy named Blimey.”

  She said quickly, “What about Blimey?”

  I said, “Where is he? The police couldn’t find any pieces, so they figure he’s still alive.”

  She let herself drop to the edge of her canopied bed. “What are you talking about? Pieces of what?”

  I said, “Pieces of Blimey. Where in hell have you been all afternoon?”

  She w
asn’t trying to hide her fear now. It showed in the whiteness at the corners of her mouth and nostrils. It showed in the way she stared at me.

  She whispered, “I really was a little drunk this afternoon. I went to sleep.”

  I said, “Then you slept through an explosion.” I told her what had happened to Blimey’s Shack. I told her about his phone call that was supposed to take me to the Shack in time to get a free launching into orbit. All the time I talked, she just stared at me.

  She said finally, “And because Blimey’s my friend, you thought I put him up to making that call.”

  I said, “That was the idea.”

  She said simply, “No.” She stood up. “What else do you think about me—and Aggie?”

  I said, “Before Clarence got a free ride on my refrigerator door, he talked. He talked about Vann and about Jaspar.” I told her about Vann and Jaspar. I didn’t mention Irma. I didn’t want to believe that part of Clarence’s story. Not after last night.

  I said, “So Vann wants to use the Temoc to collect his eighty thousand off Jaspar. But Vann is a gambler, not a con artist. I don’t think he’d know how to beat out an insurance company.”

  Bonnie said, “So you’ve elected Aggie as a kind of advisor to this Vann? He’s supposed to tell Vann how to take Marine Mutual for a hundred thousand dollars?”

  I said, “That’s how I see it.”

  She said, “And I helped Aggie by trying to find out what you’d learned about the set-up.”

  “You’re doing fine,” I said.

  She said, “Did you ever know Aggie to use muscle, Zane? To kill anyone?”

  “There’s always a first time for everything,” I said.

  She sat down heavily. “I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to look. Aggie is the goat. Aggie killed poor little Prebble and tried to kill you. With his reputation, he’s a natural.”

  I said, “Can you make it look any different?”

  She said, “I can try. Why do you think I came to see you last night, for kicks?”

  “To help Aggie,” I reminded her.

  “You’re damn right, to help him,” she said. “But not the way you have it figured out. Remember, Aggie came to you to find out what I was up to. And that was on the level.”